Only a Mask, Just a Pretender
by sparklinglemonade
Summary: He would break her, in more ways than one. AU.


The cold air bites into his skin as her nails dig into his neck. White light illuminates the dirt he's walking in, and he wonders why people say night is so dark – when the moon is just right in the sky, night can be brighter than day. Her hair swings back and forth over his arm, damp and cool against his hot, sticky skin as he takes step after step. He hears her laughing, and shakes his head. He keeps walking. After a little while, the laughter stops. At some point she drops her hands from his neck and puts them over her face.

It's even longer before hears her clear her throat. She's going to say something.

Fuck.

"You don't have to carry me," she says, her voice small, lost in the back of her throat.

He rolls his eyes, "I know," he grunts, and keeps his grip tight on her. Sure, he knows, but he does it anyway – he always will for her.

"I mean it, Puckerman, I can walk. I have legs, see?" She swings them to prove her point and grins up at him.

"I can tell," he growls, his lips in a thin line of annoyance, "you're kicking me." She laughs, but stops kicking. She starts to lean her head back, but he stops her and rolls his eyes, "stop it."

"If you insist on this, then I'll pay you back one day," she says, ignoring him, "One day, when you can't walk straight, I'll carry you." He laughs, imagining her carrying his large frame in her small, frail arms.

He would break her, in more ways than one.

"Why are you doing this?" She asks, and successfully lets her head drop down, so she sees everything upside down. It looks like he's trekking through the sky to bring her home, back down to the grass and the dirt, and she appreciates him for it.

"Because I know you wouldn't have actually made it home, so I figured I'd step in," He shifts an elbow so her head is up again. The last thing he needs is her getting dizzy and throwing up all over him.

"That's nice of you," she says absently, and puts her head back down. He moves his elbow, defeated, and feels her hair brushing the side of calf. He carries her in the silence for a few minutes, picking up her head and looking up at him, "You know what today is?"

"Yes," His answer is firm, short. He hopes she realizes this means that he doesn't want to talk about it, no matter how fucked up she is.

She doesn't.

"She would've been two," she says, and he feels himself stop walking. He tries to will his legs to move, to get away from the topic, but they won't. They stay glued to the ground, and he stares blankly at her.

"Yeah," he says, because he has to say something. He can't just let her words hang there, for everyone to see.

"That's why I was out tonight," she explains, "because I knew she would've been two, and we would've been deliriously happy that we hadn't killed her yet, but she isn't, and we aren't…so I didn't want to sit home and pretend that I couldn't remember, you know? I wanted to actually not remember."

"Didn't work for you, did it?" he remarks, and she smiles at him sadly. It didn't work for him all that well, either.

He starts walking again.

"It actually made it a little bit worse, I think," she contemplates, "I would have been better if I'd left a little while before you got there, though. I could've walked myself."

"You liar," he says, interested in hearing what she's going to say. Her mind is numb and her lips are loose, and in her case that can be classified as weaponry.

"I know," she says, after a few too many beats, "I would've ended up here one way or another. She's over there, you know," she waves her arm haphazardly, almost knocking him in the face. He pulls his neck back, looks down at her. Her eyes are full, but nothing falls.

"I know," he remembers quietly, though he doesn't want to. He's been avoiding remembering all day, running from it, though he'd known it would come with no avail.

"We should probably visit her sometime. Together, maybe." She trails off, her head lolling a bit. He doesn't like seeing her like this, and usually he doesn't have to.

Usually, he doesn't have to see her at all.

"Maybe," he says softly, when he knows she's fallen asleep. He stops heading toward his car, then turns around and backtracks. He lays her on the ground, and then sits up against the stone. He leans his forehead against it, and hums softly.

_Beth, I hear you calling_.

He sighs. Waits a while, before he kisses the cold granite and standing. She shifts in her sleep, but he lifts her again and slowly starts to move.

The cold air bites into his skin as her nails dig into his neck. White light illuminates the dirt he's walking in, and he wonders why people say night is so dark.

When the moon is just right in the sky, night can be brighter than day.


End file.
